Early Life, Family and Training Born in 1702 in Wesel am Rhein, Germany, Gerard Sanders entered a world of visual craft through the intimate ties of family. His early years were shaped by a significant transition when his mother remarried Tobias van Nijmegen. This change in family structure provided the young artist with his first formal introduction to the arts, as he became a pupil of his stepfather. Under Tobias's guidance, Sanders began to develop the foundational skills of a painter and draughtsman, learning the nuances of composition and form within a domestic apprenticeship. The traje…